Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Aftermath of George Zimmerman Trial Dying Down July 31

As the Coverage Winds
Down: Where Do We Go From Here?

As with any news story, eventually the hype winds down and
other newer topics take precedence. We seem to be hitting that point with the
Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman story. Between the royal baby, Edward Snowden’s
father speaking out and now the Bradley Manning verdict and sentencing hearing,
the news outlets have switched their attention and George Zimmerman now resides
in the bottom crawler if he appears at all.

So what does this mean for the larger issues this trial and
story brought into the national spotlight especially with regard to race relations
and gun control? Will these topics cease to be discussed? Luckily there are
other ways to get the public to address important issues, especially broad,
polarizing topics such as race and gun control. One of the main components of
social change and discussion is the entertainment industry. Most people think
television and movies are created to gain a profit and provide entertaining
fanfare to distract ordinary citizens from their lives for a couple of hours.
But just as news programs can broadcast entertaining features to try to boost
ratings, so can entertainment outlets produce products that try to invoke
social change.

Making movies that discuss race and require viewing
audiences to think about their own prejudices are not new in Hollywood. Just recently
Fruitvale Station opened nationwide.
This movie tells the true story of a young black man who was unjustly killed by
a white policeman. This film took top prize at Sundance and is bound to get
some recognition when award season starts early next year. The release of this
film corresponded with the verdict of the George Zimmerman trial when race was
already a hot topic in the media. This movie, however, helped fuel the
discussion by providing an emotional connection to race issues and not just
talking heads discussing the events of a court proceeding. Also since this
movie is receiving such critical acclaim, six months from now during the Golden
Globes and Academy Awards season when the George Zimmerman verdict seems like
ages ago, discussion of this movie and the possible nominations it might
receive will once again bring race relations back into public debate.

This is not the first time that a movie helped fuel the
discussion on race. In 1989 Spike Lee’s movie Do the Right Thing told the story of different races living in the
same Brooklyn neighborhood and how they interacted with another. In 2004, Crash
was released and told the tale of different intertwining characters of different
races and their viewpoints on racism and race relations. This movie would go on
and win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Movies about gun violence and gun control are not as
prevalent (not surprising since a whole genre of action movies relies upon
them) but can still be seen. In 2003Runaway Jury came out and told the thrilling tale of a jury consultant, Rankin
Finch, trying to pick the right jury so his gun manufacturing client will win
their case, while a member of the jury, Nick Easter wins the trust of the rest
of the jurors enabling him to manipulate their decisions. Easter then tries to
sell the jury’s verdict to Finch. Interestingly, this movie was based off a
book by John Grissom; however, in the book Finch was employed by a tobacco
company not a firearms manufacturer. Perhaps the decision to change the sinister
company that tries to fix a trial from a tobacco company to a gun manufacturer
was a result of the Columbine shooting happening less than five years earlier.

There are also documentaries that bring gun issues to the
forefront of discussion. The most notable and high profile was the Michael
Moore film, Bowling for Columbine,
which attacks different pro-gun laws. This film also won an Academy Award for
Best Documentary Feature.

So needless to say even if George Zimmerman and Travyon
Martin do not receive the news coverage they did during the height of the
trial, there are still other outlets that will make sure the larger issues this
trial brought into the discussion remain there.

This is not to say that Zimmerman and Martin are permanently
out of the news. Other events might bring them back into the news story at
least for the day. For example, New York mayoral candidate, Bill Thompson recently
gave a speech comparing New York’s Stop and Frisk law to George Zimmerman’s
murder trial. He said, "Here in New York City, we have institutionalized
Mr. Zimmerman's suspicion with a policy that all but requires our police
officers to treat young black and Latino men with suspicion, to stop them and
to frisk them because of the color of their skin.” Thompson was able to use the
tragedy that happened in Florida to address a local issue very much a topic of
debate and concern for New York City residents. Also with Sybrina Fulton,
Trayvon’s mother, actively taking a stand to get Florida’s “Stand Your Ground”
law repealed, her efforts will definitely keep her son’s memory and tragic end
alive in the media.

So just because whole news programs are no longer devoted to
the George Zimmerman trial and Trayvon Martin’s murder does not mean that the
large issues brought into the public debate are forgotten. There are still
other ways to jump start a discussion on race and gun control. These are
important issues that affect millions of Americans, and they will never be
completely out of the public’s mind.

1 comment:

this is a good transition from the case to related stories. the Bill Thompson quote shows the effect this case has had on politics, though this may be a temporary effect. I think you and I both hope for serious issues to be addressed by the media on a macro scale, not just when specific news stories or movies come out addressing the issue. nice work.